Streams of consciousness

I can't quite remember what i did for the last week or so, its a bit of a blur Visit to hamz... dehydrating fruit into leather... babysitting my cutey nephew - nearly walking but not quite confident enough... getting sick the day i was meant to head home & crashing out for a gross 24hr bug... Rochelle and Tim's wedding reception! (so radiantly happy) Work... my boss away.. random hours... boredom... practising my french on some co-workers A big pile of genealogy that Dad handed me that I didn't even know he had (woohoo!) Being woken up by a screaming baby and forgetting where I was Trying to clean my messy room and giving up after half an hour Looking for a hobby. Travel seems like a good one. I'm planning a 3day trip to Tauranga in a few weeks. Finding someone on the net who has traced one of my genealogy lines back 19 generations - Mum says I can't trust it though... will see Seeing my great great grandmothers handwritten will from 1916 this morning at Archives NZ blew me away...

Passengers

Given that I quite enjoy people watching, I always find it a great vantage point to observe human behaviour in the checkout line at the airport, or even at the airport in general. You have the people waiting for the passengers, greeting them or saying goodbye, then the actual passengers who are about to get on the flight. People stand in line from anywhere from no minutes to 45 minutes, and then when they get to the front of the queue the large majority of them develop a glazed unseeing look and have to be screamed at or tapped on the shoulder by the person behind who tends to be paying more attention than they are. You would think that at the end or beginning of a long holiday, they could just relax and be happy, but no. Queueing seems to instill a huge amount of stress on people who are normally lovely, take more than a few moments to process them and they start to stress out, usually their fears are unwarranted, sometimes they are warranted, such as when they're the last ones to check in and there are almost no available seats and the computer spits them out randomly positioned seats all over the plane. Granted, we only have them for 5-30 minutes at a time and the crew have to look after them for anywhere from 4 to 14hrs, i feel sorry for the crew. Over the last 3 days, we've been processing alot of people from several cruise ships. The bookings are made in blocks on the plane, so the first ones to check in get the good seats and get to sit with their spouse, and the last ones to check in don't. This causes them a lot of stress. I tried to put myself in their position today, especially when i was being snapped at, after all it is a 12hr flight, delayed by 2hrs, and why would you want to sit next to a complete stranger? On the other hand, theres not much I can do about it. I don't have authority to change seats, only my supervisor does, and I avoid telling people this, because he's busy and doesn't need to be inundated with requests to change seats from every single person on board. I had one lady check in with her husband, they were almost the last to check in, and she was sitting in a window seat directly in front of his window seat, she got so mad at me that they weren't sitting together. She wanted an upgrade to business class so she could sit with him. I didn't say it, but I was thinking, "You're meant to check in at least 2hrs before international flights, you arrive here 45 minutes before boarding and you think you should get preferential treatment? yeah good luck." I sent her over to ticketing so they could deal with her. Hehe. Sometimes you bend over backwards to get people the seats they want, and they're still not happy, or don't even acknowledge your efforts. Other times you get people who are just so lovely even though they have awful seats, and they smile and thank you for trying anyway. I am so glad I have the next 3 days off. Now that I've had this vent I can go away and forget about all the stresses of work until friday.

Looking for dead people

So the last time I was in a family history centre, I was hideously bored. Until I stumbled upon a page in a bicentennial celebration book for Otorohanga about my 4x great grandfather, Robert Ormsby. That was about a year ago. Yesterday, undeterred, I went back to a family history centre. I finally got a clue and took someone with me who knew what it was all about, (my new flatmate, she's great) and lo and behold I actually found some stuff interesting enough to keep me there for 4 whole hours. Yep, amazing, I know. Turns out my 4x great grandmother, Pianika, along with a bunch of other relatives who's relationship to me I haven't yet figured out, all voted in the first ever women's election back in 1893. Or at least they signed up for the electoral roll so I'm assuming they would have voted. Another one of my relatives, Henry Hoyte (possibly - I haven't quite confirmed that its actually him, but he has the same name) got on a boat in Ireland called the Carisbrook Castle, moved to Tauranga where he spent the rest of his life as a druggie/pharmacist. Maybe thats where I inherited my interest in chemistry from. In any case, researching dead people is a lot more fun when you have a clue what you're doing. I'm currently looking for one of my ancestors who was a greek countess. I tried googling her but that didn't do anything for me.

Bewitched

So I definately think that I and/or my grandmother would have been burned at the stake as witches, had we been born back in medieval times. Not that there's anything inherently evil about either of us (in my own opinion, which may or may not be a valid indicator in this instance). But back in those days women were tried/condemned for superfluous and mundane things, for example, knowing a little too much about herbs, medicines and cures for the sick, or having a spiteful neighbour who blamed you for the death of his cow, or being seen to look at the sky just before it rained. Whether the greater crime was being a little too smart for a woman, or just being different to those around you I'm not sure, but a trial where all paths lead to death is not a trial, its a condemnation. Why do I add my grandmother to this list of possible past history victims? Well, she was a smart woman, a nurse. She was always very interested in natural therapies, diet cures, eye exercises, writing, poetry, drama, reading, music and the like. Growing up my mother used to tell me that I was just like her, which I resented at the time, knowing her only as the lady who growled us whenever she saw us, which wasn't very often due to certain family circumstances which I won't relate here. I wish that I had gotten to know her better before she passed on. I studied chemistry at university because it seemed like a more practical and therefore better for me subject than the arts - english/philosophy/languages where I imagined I would have spend most of my time reading and daydreaming and accomplishing very little. Now I wonder if i would have been better off studying naturopathy or herbs or uses of plants in medicines or nutrition. It might have been more inspiring than the world of minute substances and chemicals. Mercifully for both my grandmother and I, we were born into the 20th century, not medieval witch hunt days, where women aren't outrightly punished for being intelligent and interested in natural cures. We were even born into the first country to grant that priviledged boon of voting to womenfolk. When I was at primary school, one of my friends insisted that I should have been born back in the old days. I'm not sure which old days she was referring to, but I'm glad I was born in this day and age, I like being allowed to do what I want.

Thought for the day

On Sunday I sang some nice words in a choir musical item, then yesterday I accidentally happened upon the same words in the Bible. It might be a sign. "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." (Psalms 27:14)

The world in miniature

In school, we learn that the world is made up of atoms, elements and bits and pieces of matter. They forget to mention that those pieces of matter are mostly made up of empty space with a few electrons zinging around in between. I remember asking my chemistry teacher why don't electrons go flying away from the atom. If i recall correctly her answer involved something along the lines of it being attracted to the proton at the centre of the atom, which is positively charged. They teach you that opposites attract at school, at least at the level of atoms. But then I always wondered, what holds the neutrons in place, they're neutral, aren't they? Do they really just sit there and do nothing? What is really going on at the level of atoms, and what did they omit to tell me in school? Perhaps Wikipedia will hold some insight for me.

The terribly tragically sad man

A parable for today, by Loren Seibold, in summary. A young boy, dreaming of what he wants for his life, tells God in great detail about his future job as an adventurer, his home with a lovely garden, his beautiful tall wife with a great singing voice, and his 3 sons - a scientist, politician and footballer. He also wants to drive a red ferrari and never have to pick up after himself. God tells him, he wants him to be happy. He grows up, hurts his knee, can't go adventuring, so studies marketing and starts a medical supplies business. He lives in a tall apartment building in the city, marries a beautiful woman and has 3 daughters, a nurse, artist and the youngest in a wheelchair who teaches music to children. He complains to his best friend about how his wife isn't like he pictured her when he was young, he complains to his wife about how their home wasn't like how he dreamed it, his therapist, accountant and minister also have to listen to his complaints about how he didn't get the life that he always wanted, including the fact that he still has to pick up after himself. Due to being so terribly tragically sad, he becomes ill and goes to hospital. Late at night, when everyone has gone to sleep, he talks to God about the dream he had for himself when he was younger and the things he has not received. God tells him, "I wanted to surprise you with things you didn't dream of." He tells God, "I thought you were going to give me what I always wanted." God says to him, "And i thought you were going to give me what I always wanted." It had never occured to him that God would want anything. So he asks him what that was. "I wanted to make you happy with what I gave you." That night he decides to dream a new dream, one that he wishes he had dreamed long before. A dream where the things that he really wanted, were the ones he already had. Anyone can choose to be happy, and anyone can choose to be sad. Its just up to us. For the full story, see www.raindrop.org/rain/writings/st10.shtml

Barely there

Bleary eyed... PK reached for the snooze button on her cell phone for what seemed like the millionth time. Was it seriously time to get up? It felt like she'd only just fallen asleep. oh wait, she had only just fallen asleep... at midnight she rememberd arriving home. And then she had a 3am shift. No wonder it felt so early, it was. Averaging 4hrs sleep per night for the past week - although fun, was not conducive to a peaceful state of mind. & the dark circles under her eyes vouched to a definate lack of beauty sleep. A formal ball, maze, eating onions, fireworks, spiritual lessons, faces of friends new and old happily rotated around her head. Yes it was totally worth it. A vague idea flickered to the back of her mind... what was it? Through the haze it slowly came to her... ah yes. She was moving again. Better start packing sometime soon. Reminding herself once again that she had to be at work in 45 minutes, she struggled out of bed and headed off to the bathroom to begin her day.